Keira Knightley shares huge cost of fame: 'Brutal'

Keira Knightley became familiar with fame at a very young age. She was only 18 when the first Pirates of the Caribbean was released. Then came the "big price."

During an interview with The Los Angeles Times, the actress recalled being “stalked by men” after her breakout role and being told she deserved such behavior.

“It’s very brutal to have your privacy taken away in your teenage years, early 20s, and to be put under that scrutiny at a point when you are still growing,” she added.

“Having said that, I wouldn’t have the financial stability or the career that I do now without that period," the British actress recalled.

"I had a five-year period between the age of 17 and 21-ish, and I’m never going to have that kind of success again. It totally set me up for life. Did it come at a cost? Yes, it did. It came at a big cost," she noted.

Keira also remembered the public reaction which she said always shocked her. “I didn’t think it was ok at the time. I was very clear on it being absolutely shocking."

"There was an amount of gaslighting to be told by a load of men that ‘you wanted this.’ It was r*** speak. You know, ‘This is what you deserve.’ It was a very violent, misogynistic atmosphere," the 39-year-old noted.

Knightley further clarified, “They very specifically meant I wanted to be stalked by men. Whether that was stalking because somebody was mentally ill."

She continued, "Or because people were earning money from it — it felt the same to me. It was a brutal time to be a young woman in the public eye.”

“Social media has put that in a whole other context, when you look at the damage that’s been done to young women, to teenage girls. Ultimately, that’s what fame is — it’s being publicly shamed. A lot of teenage girls don’t survive that," Keira Knightley concluded.